E3 2012 – Watch Dogs, Hope for the Jaded Gamer? + Show Round-Up

Travel back in time to 1985 and tell any gamer that in the far distant future of 2012 that Nintendo’s epic new home console’s gaming highlight will be a 2D, side scrolling platformer with a cartoon plumber in a red and blue outfit and they would think you were crazy and certainly not in possession of a time-traveling DeLorean. Unfortunetly this is exactly what Ninten-doh highlighted their next generation console with, alongside a new version of Pacman and the most nausea inducing game video I have ever seen.

Elsewhere at the Microsoft and Sony Conferences things were not much better with endless sequel syndrome in full swing yet again but now with added extra brutality and despair. Over at Electronic Arts they can’t even be bothered to come up with new titles for their sequels anymore. In fact they can’t even be bothered even with sequels, instead chosing to make the same game again with a different developer as was the case with Need for Speed – Most Wanted

So just when all hope was lost, at the end of a slightly aggressively hosted, tiger slaughtering, Ubisoft conference, (which incidentally you could argue was opened with Journeyman – Mama 6!) Yves Guillemot took to the stage and introduced us to ‘Watch Dogs’ a new IP with a great premise and a hint of next-gen-esque graphics thrown in.

There is hope after all…maybe.

This video of the demo differs from the one shown at the event in that toward the end we see the main protagonist drive off into a seemingly GTA free-roaming world. In the one shown at the conference (below) we are pulled out to another part of the city to someone else given orders to protect this person from the cops which was an interesting twist.